This week's must-read

A recent case has highlighted an emerging problem: bogus or fraudulently obtained skills cards are being used by workers to access sites. Binyamin Ali investigates the true scale of the problem – and how the industry is fighting back.

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Project of the Year (subcontract over £2m)

Equine sculptures, high-rise demolition, railway stations, and research facilities: the Project of the Year (over £2m) features all of this, and more.

Bourne Construction Engineering – Ardley energy-from-waste facility

Bourne Steel, working on behalf of Clugston, was responsible for erecting steelwork 35 m above ground level on a new energy-from-waste facility in Ardley, Oxfordshire.

Bourne erected 2,000 tonnes of structural steel, complicated by the fact that the structure was curved in elevation and plan.

The team used some of the country’s highest MEWPs and employed bespoke connections and curved beams.

The team contributed to delivering 1.5m hours without LTI accidents during construction.

Land and Water Group – Somerset dredging project

Following the extensive flooding in Somerset in winter 2013/14, funding was provided by the government in February 2014 to undertake dredging works on the rivers Parrett and Tone covering an 8-km stretch.

The team was required to work quickly, completing the works by autumn of that year.

Land and Water Group invested in new equipment, employed different working methods and used technology to ensure the Environment Agency’s stringent health & safety programme and environmental demands were met.

The firm also employed 15 flood-affected local farmers and employed 50 per cent of the workforce from the immediate environs of the site.

O’Brien Contractors – Project Dove

The Nestle Group’s Project Dove at Tutbury is the company’s largest construction scheme worldwide, and will consolidate all its UK coffee production in one place.

O’Brien Contractors won an £11m groundworks and civil engineering package to prepare the site for the major construction project.

With 2012 the wettest year on record in England, the originally tendered design was no longer feasible, so O’Brien value engineered the design to produce a new, safer, lower-cost and faster solution.

The team saved the client £800k and prevented three weeks of extra work on site.

SH Structures – The Kelpies, Helix Park, Falkirk

The centrepiece of the 360 ha Helix Park near Falkirk, the Kelpies, are two 30 m-high horse heads which stand next to the newly extended Forth and Clyde Canal.

Services and fabric had to have extremely high airtightness levels, 1,100 times higher than applicable Building Regulations and at four times the pressure to prevent bio-contamination.

In addition, to guarantee certainty of delivery and a zero-failure approach, engineers worked closely with Shepherd to design and build a separate research and development facility on site before full construction commenced.

The client described it as a “magnificent building”.

Thompsons of Prudhoe – Chandless Estate demolition

Thompsons of Prudhoe undertook the demolition, asbestos removal, site clearance and restoration to grassed amenity space of the entire Chandless Estate in Gateshead, built in the 1960s.

The project stands out thanks to its sheer size and its proximity to the public posed a challenge.

Issues to contend with included asbestos removal at 16 storeys, an air vent structure for the Tyne & Wear Metro underground transport system, and an old mine shaft.

The team recycled nearly 47,000 tonnes of material (a rate of 99.4 per cent) without a single accident on site.

Wiehag, Glulam grid shell roof over the Crossrail station at Canary Wharf

One of the flagship elements of Europe’s largest postwar civil engineering project, Crossrail’s Canary Wharf station features a striking glulam grid shell roof manufactured and installed by Wiehag.

The 300 m-long roof cantilevers out 30 m at each end over the dock and is approximately the size of One Canada Square laid on its side.

The largest glulam contract to date in the UK, Wiehag provided nearly 1,500 glulam members with a maximum length of 9 m, with zero RIDDORs in six months of work on site.

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